Liljenquist has never voted for federal tax hikes or massive entitlement spending or multibillion-dollar bailouts or serial debt-limit increases in Washington because he has never served in Washington. Never. Hatch, by contrast, has spent the past 36 years racking up a Big Government record that cannot be whitewashed away.

Outside the Beltway/Hatch fog machine, Liljenquist’s integrity and commitment to reining in runaway spending are unassailable. In state legislative policy circles, he’s known as the “Paul Ryan of Utah” — after the courageous and wonky Wisconsin Republican congressman who’s forcing kick-the-can politicians in both parties to reckon with welfare-state profligacy.

Liljenquist doesn’t just preach fiscal discipline or embrace it during election years. He has led the way as a nationally honored budget and pension reformer in the Utah Senate. Unlike the 77-year-old Beltway barnacle Hatch, Liljenquist has spent his formative adult years excelling in the private sector as a global management consultant and business strategist. He also helmed a privately owned call center that grew from two to 1,500 employees since its 1995 founding.

As a state legislator during the past four years, Liljenquist pioneered tough state pension and Medicaid reforms that serve as models for the rest of the states. His hard work earned him the nonpartisan Governing magazine “2011 Public Official of the Year” award.

Liljenquist is everything that Republican establishment types — who savaged lesser-prepared tea party candidates in 2008 — say they want the next generation of GOP leaders to be: smart, principled, articulate and unquestionably prepared for the office he seeks.

Keenly aware of both the urgency and complexity of entitlement reform, Liljenquist refuses to demagogue the issue. Desperate to hold on to power as he faces an unprecedented primary, Hatch has pounded Liljenquist with an out-of-context sound bite on a hypothetical federal entitlement reform deal that might possibly involve “revenue enhancements.”

Based on a single media ambush against Liljenquist, Hatch and his ill-informed supporters are branding Liljenquist a tax-and-spender. This is Bizarro Land territory.

And it is an abject sign of desperation that Hatch, one of the GOP’s most profligate big spenders, is masquerading as a limited-government tea party godfather.

Fact: Hatch co-sponsored the $6 billion national service boondoggle in 2009 and dedicated it to his good friend Teddy Kennedy.

As predicted, the federal makework program has become a slush fund for endless progressive social justice pet projects and Obama pals.

Fact: Hatch joined hands with Kennedy again to create the ever-expanding, tax hike-funded SCHIP health care Trojan Horse for Obamacare. It’s now an $8-billion-a-year entitlement and growing.

Fact: Hatch voted to raise the debt ceiling 16 times over the past 36 years — totaling future liabilities of some $7.5 trillion imposed on our children and grandchildren.

Fact: Hatch was an original sponsor of the open-borders DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout and voted for the trillion-dollar TARP bank-turned-all-purpose bailout.

Fact: Hatch was the third-biggest earmarker on Capitol Hill in 2010 — including $50 million for his own Solyndra-style green energy failure, a bankrupt environmental firm known as Raser Technologies.

Fact: In the costly spirit of “bipartisanship” and comity, Hatch backed the nominations of Obama tax-cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and scandal-plagued Attorney General Eric Holder. “I like Barack Obama,” Hatch said, “and I want to help him if I can.”

Fact: Even after former corruptocrat Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., had shepherded the monstrously expensive and crony-friendly Dodd-Frank legislation through Congress and stepped down in disgrace over his Countrywide financial sweetheart deals, Hatch praised Dodd as “one of the better senators here.”

Booting out Beltway barnacles closing in on four decades in power is not “cannibalization.” It’s healthy rejuvenation, restoration and rejection of the pernicious permanent political class our Founding Fathers so vehemently opposed.

Michelle Malkin writes this column for Creators Syndicate and is a Fox News Channel contributor.

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Ms. Malkin is doing her job if she takes on Senator Hatch over his legislative record. But where do her snide comments on his age have any bearing. She is 42 years old. At what age do her opinions lose validity?

"Booting out Beltway barnacles closing in on four decades in power is not “cannibalization.” It’s healthy rejuvenation, restoration and rejection of the pernicious permanent political class our Founding Fathers so vehemently opposed".

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

James Madison, "Father of the Constitution" and chief author (1794): ""I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

some dude, being "smart, principled, articulate, and unquestionably prepared for the office" is no guarantee that the person is suitable for the job, especially if his principles are erroneous. If he bases his entire political life on the idea that the federal government (or any other level of government) should be totally unlimited in its powers, then that person is not qualified to be even a dogcatcher, IMO.

U43s, fielders, and AynRand's comments are typical hate speech for they have nothing with which to back up their opinions.

Geithner and Obama have failed miserably. BLS U3 stats are still above 8.2%, and are still averaging 9.2% unemployment, since Obama's inauguration. The U6 stats still are above 14 % unemployed. And more than 25% of black youths are still unemployed.

Gasoline was at $1.67 a gallon before Obama was inaugurated. Has obama done anything to keep it from rising to its current value? Or has he done everything he can to make it rise, by restricting the supply of crude oil?